The Data ONTAP system supports up to 64 local tape drives
(tape drives connected directly to the system). The tape
drive interface follows a UNIX-like device name allowing
use of a rewind, norewind or unload/reload device. The
device name can be the classic cstnd format, or of the
format c.name.d where:

c

describes the rewind/unload characteristic of the
device. Use r to specify the rewind device, use nr
to specify the norewind device, or use ur to specify
the unload/reload device. The norewind device
will not rewind when the tape device is closed.
The unload/reload device is used with sequential
tape loaders and will unload the current tape volume
and attempt to load the next tape volume (note
that the server will wait up to one minute for the
next volume to become ready before aborting the
reload of the next volume). The rewind device will
rewind the tape volume to beginning-of-tape on
close.

st

the st portion of the device name is always present
in the classic format, and is one of the
options in the name format. It specifies that you
are requesting a SCSI tape device.

n

the alias number (in decimal) of the tape drive to
use. The st and n parameters together - stn constitute
a tape "alias". See the storagealias
command for information about tape aliases and
device addresses.

d

the density (or format) to use for tape write
operations. Consists of one of the four letters l
(low), m (medium), h (high) or a (advanced).

name

specifies a tape alias, an electrical name or an
IEEE World-Wide Name (WWN) corresponding to the
device. The electrical-name and WWN formats only
can contain an optional device LUN (SCSI Logical
UNit) parameter expressed as Llun. See the storagealias command for further information about
the format of the name parameter.

Each tape device is automatically associated with an
alias. If an alias assignment does not already exist at
the first discovery of a tape device, the system will create
an alias for it. FC devices receive WWN aliases, and
SCSI devices receive electrical aliases by default. The
alias will remain associated with the WWN or electrical
name -- even through boot -- until the alias is changed.

The storagealias and storageunalias commands (q.v.)
allow the user to preassign electrical or WWN addresses to
aliases (the devices do not have to exist yet), or to
adjust the aliases after automatic assignment. A WWN alias
allows an FC device that has been moved from one FC
adapter or switch port to another to be located by the
system without further intervention. An electrical-name
alias allows a particular address to be persistently allocated
to the alias.

The sysconfig-t command displays the tape drives on your
system, the device alias associated with each tape device,
and the device's available density settings. The following
is an example of the output from a sysconfig command
on a system with one tape device attached: